


Since I Was Born I Started to Decay

by indevan



Series: Rock Band AU [25]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Character Study, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 10:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13051785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: Later, he’ll find he won’t be able to cry.  When he wants to, he thinks of this, he thinks of his father making fun of him and the tears don’t come





	Since I Was Born I Started to Decay

**Author's Note:**

> [timeline](http://vertigoats.tumblr.com/post/166537761367/since-after-the-first-few-the-fics-in-rock-band)

Broly is two years old, maybe younger.  Later, he’ll remember this even though everyone says you don’t remember things from when you were a baby, you only remember things other people tell you.  A trick of the mind.  He doesn’t buy it--his father would of course support that, say it never happened.  Right now, though, he’s just a baby and he’s alone in the kitchen.

He hates the floor.  The pattern is awful: kidney-shaped outlines in red and black on aqua linoleum.  There’s grittiness under his palms from dirt on the floor and he’s crying.  It’s a deep, aching sort of cry, harsh and jagged.  The tears rip out of him.  His father, then, on the floor on all fours.  Near his face, his mouth open, mocking him.  He rubs at his eyes, pretending to cry.  He lets out a loud wail of his own.

This isn’t the only time this has happened.  Later, he’ll find he won’t be able to cry.  When he wants to, he thinks of this, he thinks of his father making fun of him and the tears don’t come.

\--

The school year is almost over and it’s his birthday.  First grade looms at the end of the summer but Broly doesn’t think that far.  He thinks in the now in this classroom where it’s another boy’s birthday, too.  His name is Kakarrot Son and he’s brought donut holes to school.  He’s passing them out, but there’s a lot of glaze smeared on his face to show that he’s probably eaten most of them himself.

Everyone is excited that he brought treats and no one pays Broly any mind.  An unfamiliar emotion bubbles up in him: anger.  Hate.  He doesn’t like this boy, he decides.  The teacher remembers him, though, and brings him a donut hole and makes the class say his name, too, when they sing “Happy Birthday.”

Later, Broly watches Kakarrot play on the playground with his friend, Krillin.  He doesn’t want them to ask him to play but he’s hurt that they don’t.  No one does.  No one ever notices him.

\--

There’s a taxicab idling outside and his mom has both hands on his shoulders.

“Do you want to come with me?” she asks.

She’s just as bad as his dad but she’s not around anymore so she seems less so.  Now she calls twice a year, once on his birthday and then on either Christmas or Mother’s Day.  Whenever she calls, she coos, “Broly-poly, my sweet baby boy…” before talking about her life on the west coast.  She talks about how it’s always sunny and that she saw all the seals at the shore and how she’ll take him to the boardwalk even though there’s a perfectly good boardwalk not far from here.

That day he shakes his head.  Dad needs him.  He says he’d be heartbroken without him, and he doesn’t want to make him sad.  His mom kisses his forehead.

“You made a good choice, baby,” she says. “Now stick with it.”

Later he wonders if he did.

\--

He’s in ninth grade.  His school, Northside High, is surrounded by fences and you have to walk through a metal detector and have your bag checked every day.  Today he waits behind a girl who’s much shorter than him but, then again, everyone is.  In the past year he’s shot up six inches and the doctors say he’ll probably grow more.

The security guard barely glances in her bag and the girl makes a face.

“You didn’t even look,” she says irritably.

He smiles and says, “You never have anything, Chi-Chi.  I wish more students were like you.”

She grumbles under her breath and walks forward.  Broly knows her: Chi-Chi Mau.  She’s in his biology class and they had to dissect a frog together.  She’s pretty nice, but scary.  Driven.  And more than a little pushy.  She kept rewriting all of their notes because she said Broly’s handwriting was too illegible.

He’s the student teachers don’t know what to do with.  He isn’t a delinquent but he isn’t a star pupil either.  His grades are okay, which isn’t good enough for his father who demands to know what he did wrong to have such a useless, average boy and, “no wonder you’ll live here forever.”

The security guard gives a cursory check and smiles at him before telling him to have a nice day.

The boys behind him are another story.  Broly watches as the security guard digs through everything in the first boy’s bag while he stands in front of him, hands behind his head, like he’s ready to be frisked.

“Put your arms down, Turles,” he says tiredly.

Turles.  He’s on a first name basis with the principal even if he can never nail him for anything other than his attitude.  The next boy comes up and Broly knows him, too: Kakarrot Son.  No donut holes, now, but he still doesn’t like him.

“Take your hat off,” the security guard says. “You know dress code.”

The man’s entire demeanor has changed from how he dealt with Broly and Chi-Chi.  The next boy gets it, too.

“Empty your pockets, Prince.”

Broly only knows this one in the vaguest sense.  Everyone still talks about the boy who got tossed from his fancy private school.  The reasons and rumors behind it get wilder with each telling and Broly doesn’t know or care enough to find out the truth.  He looks frightening, anyway, despite being so short, so he avoids him.

The final boy of the group makes him pause.  He’s big--tall and broad--with riotous dark hair framing a handsome face.  Broly’s mouth goes dry as he watches him get put through the same routine the three before him were.  Broly doesn’t know him, doesn’t know him at all.

Who is he?

\--

It takes him until the next year to actually learn his name: Raditz Son.  Kakarrot’s brother.  He doesn’t talk to him, never sees him, until the day he and Turles have detention at the same time.

When Turles offers him a ride home.

“We’re taking Broly home, too,” he says.

The other three are gathered around an old Saab that was maybe green once but the sun has discolored large patches of it.  Broly watches as Vegeta Prince hops off of the hood and grinds his cigarette out on it.

“I have to pick up Tarble.”

“It’s fine.  We’ll fit.”

Turles arches his brows and grins and Broly’s surprised when Vegeta just shrugs and tells him to get in.

It’s cramped in the back and he’s close to Raditz, too close.  He doesn’t have to sit in the middle because he’s too tall and, for once, he’s glad for his height.  Raditz smells like Old Spice and he’s warm against him and Broly feels heat flush to the back of his neck.

He hasn’t told anyone he’s gay.  He would never tell his father and he has no friends to tell.  He looks at Raditz and feels something deep within him, something warm and fluttery.  Not that it matters--Raditz probably isn’t gay.  He probably has a cute, punk girlfriend who looks like Brody from The Distillers.

The car pulls up to a brick, ivy-colored building--Cold Academy.  Like their school, it’s surrounded by a fence but it’s regal-looking with brick and wrought iron as if they’re keeping people out rather than Northside High, that keeps them in.  The cars in the car loop are luxurious, too.  BMWs and Audis--cars like that.  Broly thinks Vegeta’s car may have been nice and expensive once but it’s clearly old and battered.

Out front there’s a small-ish boy wearing uniform blazer with the school’s crest on it.  He’s standing amongst other kids but Broly somehow notices him.  Maybe it’s the pinched, forlorn expression on his face or his slumped posture.  Something he sees in himself.

Vegeta rolls the window down and sticks his upper body over the car.  He bangs on the roof.

“Hey, Tarble.  Come the fuck on.”

The boy somehow brightens when he hears that and heads to the car.

“Scoot in,” he commands. “Put Tarble in the middle.”

Kakarrot, in his position in the passenger seat, shakes his head.

“I still can’t picture you going here, Geta,” he says.

“Fuck off.”

Turles gets out to allow Tarble in and Broly is pressed up against the window by Raditz.  He struggles to regulate his breathing.

“Where do you live?” Vegeta asks harshly.

He recovers enough to tell him and the car peels out of the loop.  Turles passes him a phone.

“Put your number in here in case you want to hang.” He grins and he can’t say no.

When Broly gets home, his father demands to know who was in the car, if they were his friends, if they went to his school.  Broly answers as much as he can.  Says someone gave him a ride.  Says everything right.  His father sends him to bed without dinner, anyway.

\--

The band teacher likes Broly so he lets him practice by himself after school.  He has an affinity for instruments.  He somehow masters each one he picks up in almost no time at all.  It’s nice, knowing he has a talent, and spending time in the band room means he doesn’t have to go home.  His father’s been working more, anyway, longer hours.  Broly doesn’t mind him being gone but somehow the emptiness of the house is worse.

Today, he’s practicing the alto sax when he hears drumming from one of the private lesson rooms.  Whoever it is is good and it’s rock drumming, which means that it isn’t a member of the jazz band.  Broly places his saxophone down and goes to investigate.  The private lesson rooms are just closets that the band teacher put soundproofing wafters on (with little success) so he can’t look in, but the doors don’t lock.  Broly knocks once and the drumming stops.  Turning the handle, he pokes his head in to find out the identity of the mysterious drummer.

Raditz sits behind the drumset and Broly’s mouth goes dry.  He looks sheepish and caught, eyes wide and face flushed.  His skin is a bit sweaty from playing and his hair is messy all over his head.

“Shit.  I didn’t know anyone was in here.” Raditz looks away.  Rubs the back of his neck with one hand. “Don’t tell the teacher, okay?  I just…”

He bites his lip and Broly’s seized with the thought of kissing those lips.  He doesn’t think about telling the teacher.

“I’m taking lessons,” he says. “My uncle, uh, god-dad?  He’s been teaching me for years in exchange for helping him in his repair shop but I don’t have my own kit so I can’t practice.  I was gonna leave it how I found it.”

Raditz is a known delinquent but he sounds so apologetic about being found and it makes Broly’s heart lurch.

“I won’t tell,” he says quietly.

He smiles at him and he’s certain that his heart skips a beat.

\--

It’s graduation day.  Broly stands with his mother who flew in just to see him.  He hasn’t seen her in person in probably five or six years and it’s weird, almost like she’s a stranger.  She’s bubbly and smiling and posing for pictures with him.  She keeps saying how proud she is of him.  His father is smiling, too, even though he’s already said how ashamed he is that Broly isn’t going to college.  It’s not like he couldn’t get in but money’s an issue, much like everyone else.  Even Chi-Chi, smart as she is, is going to community college until she can transfer to a full university.  At least, that’s what she said at one of their senior meetings.

He looks over to where she is, posing next to Kakarrot.  She keeps pulling him into proper poses while all he wants to do is fuck around like the idiot he is.  Then Chi-Chi moves out of the frame and Raditz walks in to take pictures with him.  He’s grinning broadly and Broly feels hot under his graduation gown.  He’s barely seen Raditz since he graduated and moved downtown.  He doesn’t even see him pick Kakarrot up from school anymore in that old, black van that Turles drives.  He swallows against a dry throat.

“Broly.”

His father is staring at him, partly glaring.

“Your mother has to go to the airport.  Come on.”

That night, Broly waits until his father is asleep when he leaves.  He has the instruments he’s asked for his birthday and Christmas over the years and a suitcase and backpack loaded with clothes.  He takes the money out from the safe he’s kept hidden away from his father’s knowledge and stuffs it in his pockets.  Laden down with cases and bags, Broly sneaks out as best as he can and makes it to the bus stop.  He has no goal, only a desire to escape.  He had to wait until graduation, until he’s eighteen, to escape the suffocating press of his father’s house.  He figures he’ll go to a motel until he figures out where to go.  He thinks about the desert.  The cool, dry heat and a small house he can have to himself.  He has no idea how he’ll make money.  He’s worked at a small, local grocery for two years and has saved every dollar he’s made, waiting for this day, but the minimum wage he makes there isn’t enough to cover rent on a potential place or even a long term stay at a motel.  He shifts the instruments in his hands and thinks about maybe busking on the street.

The motel isn’t completely shady but the hall lights are out on the first floor and they make him pay for his stay in cash, which is fine because he doesn’t want his father to track the credit card he gave him.

His room has weird horse paintings on the wall and the pattern of the carpet reminds him of the kitchen floor at home and it makes him queasy.  There’s looping water stains on the ceiling that look like a mountain range and even the television is coin-operated.  Broly pulls back the bedspread and sits on the sheets, not sure what to do.  He hasn’t thought this far--he thought he would chicken out or his father would find out and guilt him into staying.

His phone vibrates and Broly almost jumps out of his skin.  He swallows and picks it up with shaking hands, expecting to see his father’s name, but instead it’s a number that’s never texted him before--an exchange of numbers he forgot ever happened.

 **Unregistered Number:** _It’s your graduation too right?  Come hang with us!_

He stares at the message for a full minute, unsure how to respond.  Carefully he types back that he can’t, that he’s at a motel.  After a moment’s consideration, he adds Turles’s number to his contacts.

 **Turles:** _you on vacation?_

Without going into detail, Broly tells him that he moved out.

 **Turles:** _Where?  What room number?_

He isn’t sure why he tells him.  Maybe he’ll bring the party to him, he thinks for a moment before shaking the thought off.  He’s barely spoken to Turles outside of a few nods of acknowledgement in the hallway.  Once he graduated, Broly never heard from him.  Nearly an hour passes before there’s a knock on the door.

“Housekeeping!”

Turles is on the other side, one hand on his cocked hip and a brazen grin on his face.

“Why are you here?” Broly asks.

“Hello to you, too.”

Turles wipes at his nose with one hand and broadens his grin.

“Grab your shit,” he says. “No way you’re living in a motel.”

“Then where will I live?”

“With us.  Duh.”

Turles says it so matter of factly and Broly has no idea how to react.

“What?” he manages finally.

Turles walks past him into his motel room and gives an appreciative whistle at his pile of instruments.

“These yours?” He shakes his head. “‘Course they are.”

Broly turns, trying to follow the situation at hand.

“You barely know me.  Why are you asking me to live with you?”

He doesn’t know who the “us” is but he can probably guess.

“‘Cause no one just _leaves_ the night of their graduation for funsies.  You have to have a reason to move out.”

Turles gives him a meaningful look and Broly feels a sudden, silent understanding between them.

“You only pay for one night?”

Broly nods.

“Good.  C’mon.  Help me with your stuff.  I’m not parked far.”

He isn’t sure why or even if he can fully trust Turles but he grabs up his belongings and follows him outside.

\--

Their band doesn’t sound bad.  He likes the way the guitars go in and out, weaving a unique sound that makes finding who’s lead and who’s rhythm indistinguishable.  As much as he dislikes Kakarrot, he has to admit he’s talented at the guitar--not as good as Vegeta is, though, who has a sound that’s somehow both rough and polished at once.

Beneath that, beneath the blending voices (which, Broly thinks, isn’t _quite_ there as the two of them clash on higher harmonies), he can hear Turles pumping his bass guitar and the pounding beat of Raditz’s drums.  He almost blurts out that he finally got his own kit but he stops himself.  Raditz has probably long forgotten that conversation.  He looks good as he drums, though, even in practice.  He tosses his lion’s mane of hair and bites his lip or sticks his tongue out.

They end the song jaggedly, all ending at different times: clash of guitar, squealing feedback, a petering off thump of drums.

“Fuck,” Turles says, stretching out his hand. “We’re still missing something.”

Broly can hear it, too.  Their sound is fine but there’s nothing that makes it unique.

“No shit,” Vegeta growls. “The fact that we can’t fucking stop at once doesn’t help.”

He glares at Kakarrot who grins cheekily, waving his hands in front of his face.

“Sorry, sorry.” He presses his hands together. “I’m distracted.”

“With what?” Raditz asks. “Still thinking about the fact that you fucked my boyfriend?”

There’s an undercurrent, suddenly, that wasn’t there before.  Broly looks between them all, outside that he is, and then at Turles who is suddenly very preoccupied with fiddling with his guitar.

“No,” Kakarrot says and there’s a tension in his voice now.  A pulse in his jaw. “Chi-Chi’s pregnant.”

Broly widens his eyes in surprise.  So Kakarrot _is_ that dumb.  Turles and Raditz look similarly shocked but Vegeta doesn’t at all.

“Your highness, what gives?” Turles has noticed it, too. “He tells us he’s knocked up his girlfriend and you’re not even rolling your eyes and calling him a moron?”

A shrug. “He’s already told me.  So I’ve gotten to do both of those things already.”

Raditz whips his head towards him. “He did?  You told Vegeta before you told me?”

Kakarrot gives a shrug of his own.

“You were pissed at me.”

“I _am_ pissed at you,” he corrects and then shakes his head. “Whatever.  You sure she’s pregnant?”

He nods glumly.

“Yep.  I’m gonna be a dad.”

Broly rubs his arms nervously and watches Kakarrot’s hands rub at the collar of his t-shirt.  He drops his own hands, mad that they’re both prone to fidgeting like this.  Mad that he has something in common with him other than a birthday.

They all look a bit too distracted to get back to practicing and it gives Broly an idea.  He doesn’t quite trust it or himself to speak up but he licks his lips and takes a breath anyway.

“Um.  I could...join in.  I play a few instruments.”

“You do?” Kakarrot asks.

Vegeta snorts derisively. “No shit.  What did you _think_ all of those cases were?”

“Oh shut up.”

He’s back to grinning as he shoves Vegeta playfully.  Broly gets up from his spot on the couch and gets his keyboard.  Apparently they used to practice in Turles’s detached garage but he no longer speaks to his mom.  Mostly they use the rehearsal room in the back of the record shop where Kakarrot works but tonight they’re taking up most of the floorspace of the apartment.

He doesn’t bother with the stand but he plugs it into the power strip.  Sometimes they lose power in the apartment so Raditz came back from his parents’ place once with the strip and things have gotten a lot smoother.

“Can you play that song again?” he asks. “And, uh, I’ll join in.”

Raditz nods and taps out a beat.  The tension remains but they play together fine.  Broly picks out moments where he can chime in, letting the synthetic sound of his keyboard mix with the fuzzy feedback of the guitars and the staccato drumming.  When they finish, he ducks his head and feels a blush rise to his cheeks.

“Hey, I think that’s it,” Turles says. “I think we found what we were missing.”

He punctuates his statement with a wild whoop.  Raditz flashes Broly a smile and gives him a thumbs up.  Even with his head lowered, he allows himself a smile.

He thinks that he has, too.

**Author's Note:**

> http://vertigoats.tumblr.com


End file.
